Should awesome models drive your choice of units?

[gauntlet]

With the release of the new Deathleaper model today and we can hope for similar resculpt of non character Lictors in the style of Von Ryan's Leapers, I am struck how my attitude to army composition is very heavily influenced by awesome aethetics of models.

Does this affect you and should it the be best way to choose your army units?

[gauntlet]

I would be interested to see the leg joints, knees and ankles of Deathleaper, it's not clear in photos. GW are only slowly learning how to give Tyranids joints that look to have realistic articulation.

[broyston]

More complicated. I would consider myself to primarily be a narrative player, I have never played in a tournament and rarely in pick up games in stores, and the people I game with generally are beer and pretzel types as well, so often I have been able to take what I want without worrying too much about how powerful or weak the rules are, just as you say because I like the models. However it has to be said that in some editions certain models have been underwhelming rules wise (and some would argue the whole army at times) so I have sometimes had to not take too many of certain models if we wanted to have a game that was going to be not over early and at least be interesting. Having said that there have been times when I have also avoided spamming some models when they were good, looking at you flying hive tyrant in prior editions.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

More complicated. I tend to play casually competitive, so matched play at local leagues but trying out different strategies and lists. Then there's other times, I play for look of the models or whole army. For example, over the weekend my friends and I did a 3k each 3 way game and I was trying to field all my cool looking painted nids for the edition send off.

[infornography]

For me, it comes down to the purpose of the question.
Choice of units to buy, build, and paint? Absolutely!
Choice of units to field in a competitive list, not really.

[purestrain]

Sometimes I just couldn't care less about winning and just bring fun stuff like 2ed biovore and a (please do not swear) ton of genestealers because they're neat looking

[jesses]

I'm with all the people who said "more complicated." My list choices are driven by what models I think are cool (either visually, or conceptually), but only up to a point. I'll often take a Toxicrene these days because it looks rad as heck, and the rules are fine. Not good, but it's not costing me games by itself. But there have been times when it was just so overpriced and bad that it never made it into my lists.

If taking units that are Rule of Cool means I'm more likely to get a loss than a win, whatever. I just want to play fun games, and if I'm losing on points but its close I can live with that. I care more about the game being fun for me than a victory or loss.

But if the units are SO BAD that it means I'm getting tabled T2, well, that's not a fun game. That's not even a full game, I probably spent more time getting to the FLGS and setting up than I did playing.

[gordian77]

normally for the tyranids (and other factions) i buy the models i like. the few times I play, I ask a tournament friend for a competitive list and buy what I don't have

[gman25639]

Yes. Getting back into the game after yet another hiatus and I'm doing an OOE conversion because he'll look awesome on the table next to some other Carnifexes and the new Screamer Killer.

[N.I.B.]

Jun 12, 2023 10:40:07 GMT gauntlet said:

should [aesthetics] be the best way to choose your army units?

Who are anyone to tell someone else how he should enjoy his hobby? Whatever floats your boat.